ABC Family orders comedy, reality series

Cabler renews 'Secret Life' for fifth season

ABC Family has placed series orders for comedy “Baby Daddy” and reality skein “Beverly Hills Nannies,” while renewing Shailene Woodley starrer “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” for a fifth season.

The cabler also cast Tori Spelling and Tia Mowry in original movie “The Mistle-Tones,” which will air in December.

Chelsea Kane, Tahj Mowry and Derek Theler will topline “Baby Daddy,” which ABC Family said was its highest-testing comedy pilot ever. Dan Berendsen (“The Nine Lives of Chloe King”) is exec producing the multicam sitcom, about a young man whom unexpectedly becomes a father to a baby girl left on his doorstep by an ex-girlfriend.

“Beverly Hills Nannies” follows a group of nannies working for families in Beverly Hills and will be produced beginning in springtime by Evolution Media (“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”). Coincidentally, ABC this week greenlit a drama pilot from “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry called “Devious Maids,” about four ambitious household employees in Beverly Hills.

Production on “Baby Daddy” and “Beverly Hills Nannies” will begin in the spring, with summer premieres targeted. Orders for new ABC Family series are typically 10-12 episodes.

“Secret Life,” whose fifth season will make it the first ABC Family original series to run past 100 episodes, stars Woodley, who became more widely known for her role in Oscar nominee “The Descendants.”